“Where have you been?” she asked finally.

“Visiting a dear old friend.”

“For six days?”

“We would have stayed together far longer if we had the time,” said Merlin wistfully. “I do wish I had my hat, though. Never realized how difficult it is to procure a decent meal without magic. I suppose that’s why people find companions eventually; it makes it easier to manage the burden of food when there’s two of you. Then again, living life alone comes with its benefits. Like learning self-reliance or traveling on a whim or washing your hair only once a year.”

Agatha waited for him to get to the point.

“It is marvelous up here, isn’t it?” he sighed, gazing into star-spattered emptiness. “Almost makes me forget the things I’ve seen—Good’s old heroes, slain and discarded, their bodies left in the Woods to rot. Some as famous as Thumbelina and Aladdin, others never known by their proper name, but only as the ‘Clever Tailor’ or the ‘Wily Beggar Boy.’ I buried as many of them as I could, but we’ll have to give them proper graves in the Garden of Good and Evil when the time comes.”

A haunted sadness clouded his face, his thoughts still somewhere in the Woods. Agatha knew she should be just as sad for these dead heroes, and yet, all she could think about was finding a way not to join them.

“Merlin,” Agatha prodded gently. “You are aware that you left us here and never explained how to beat an army twenty times our size—”

“I’m well aware, Agatha. But what’s most important to me now is whether you’ve made any progress in how you’re going to convince Sophie to destroy her ring.”

“I can’t do it, Merlin. You told us that Sophie has to destroy the ring by choice. Threatening to kill her doesn’t give her a choice at all, nor does it seem Good.”

“Is that how Cinderella told you to get Sophie to destroy the ring?” Merlin said, aghast.

“Um, she spent the last five days trying to get me to torture the White Rabbit.”

Merlin groaned. “Should have known that’s why she wanted Dovey’s wand. A bit of a guerrilla, that girl; no doubt a product of her upbringing. Yes, I’m afraid bullying your best friend to get what you want isn’t just morally questionable, but utterly useless. As I’ve said, the School Master is only destroyed if Sophie destroys the ring. If Sophie dies without destroying the ring, the School Master loses his true love in body, but not in spirit. Meaning he’ll lose his immortality and be mortal like the rest of us, but still very much alive, with an army of villains at his command, and nearly impossible to kill. Hardly the end that we seek.”

He paused thoughtfully. “And yet Cinderella is onto something. Sophie is Evil’s queen now. You will not convince her to destroy the ring by appealing to her Goodness. You have to confront the deepest Evil in her and prove she has a reason to do so.”